Fear is the wrong kind of worship

I preach this a lot and I won’t go into a whole lot of
detail but there’s a couple of places where you can see the mind and heart of
Satan revealed in the Bible. Man it’s awesome that it reveals how he’s
thinking. In Genesis he takes what God says and puts a twist to it - it’s
called “deception.” He imposes [?] to know the will and intention of God and
the heart of God. And he speaks it to Eve and Eve listens and goes, “Hmm, that
makes sense.” But it was twisted, right? He did it with Jesus, “If you’re a Son
throw yourself down. He’ll bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.
If you’re a son, cast yourself down, He’ll catch you before you hit the ground.”
So he’s getting Him to test God and tempt God and jump off to prove He’s a Son …
no, He’s a Son because God says He’s a Son. But Satan twists the word. So that’s
one place where he’ll take what God says and put a “can’t” to it. But in
Ezekiel he says, “I’ll rise above God. I’ll sit on the throne. I’ll be God.”
And God says, “Oops, you should not have said that” and throws him to the earth,
right? So he’s walking to and fro upon the earth, right? Is he still trying to
fulfill that decree? Absolutely! Can he go knock God off the throne and sit
there? [No.] Guess where he’s trying to sit - in the highest place of your
life - the throne of your soul. He’s trying to take up residence right here and
be a god unto you. He wants you to fear him - to worship him with your fear. He
wants you to be discouraged and depressed and treat him as if he’s god. He
feeds off of that because he’s fallen. He’s full of insecurities. He’s crushed.
He’s driven by fear. He’s driven by fear. He knows the trumpet’s going to
blow and he’s done. He’s afraid that one day you’re going to see what He
already knows about God. And Revelations says when we see him in that day and
we’re in a full revelation we’re going to go, “This is the guy that caused
havoc among the nations? This is the one? You’re kidding me.” When we’re
illuminated and we’re standing there in the light and he’s revealed for who he
really is we’re going to go, “Huh?” Because the truth is he is crushed. And he
is so freaked out that one day you’re going to see what he knows. They fear
Him. They hear His name and tremble. “Are you here to torment us before our
time?” Now they realize they were played like a pawn and put the Son of God on
the cross and killed Him and now life comes to every man that believes. Oh my
gosh, if they don’t do major overtime deception, we’re going to get a
revelation and see what he helped accomplish and crush his kingdom. So they’re freaked out and afraid. So he’s
thriving and desiring to sit on the throne of men’s souls and get them to
worship him from that place, in fear, self-consciousness, self-centeredness,
pride, jealousy, bitterness, you name it. It’s all a form of honoring him
because it’s not your nature, it’s not your destiny, it’s not your created
value, it’s not who you are. It’s what you were given and became through the
fall.1